Chapter 5: Teaching Information Literacy and Digital Citizenship

Have you ever wondered what Search Engines really are and how they work??

As we all know a search engine acquires information from the internet for our use. A search engine itself is a software program that uses networks of computers to access information from its many databases. With the use of "Keywords", search engines narrow a sear to specific instead of general categories.

                                                                not this ---->

 <--- this!

                                                                      ...and this--->

<--- and this too!









Chapter 5 talks about the the internet and its vast capabilities can change how students, teachers, and even the general public can learn and access information. With all the knowledge and information that the internet has to provide, it is up to educators to teach and learn how to distinguish what information is "good information" and what isn't.  To give you an idea as to how much the internet has grown; " By 2010, the Internet had surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a new platform on a typical day and now ranks just behind TV" (Purcell, Rainie, Mitchell, Rosenstiel, & Olmstead 2010. With the power of the Internet at our disposal comes learning certain types of literacy and overall responsibility. As internet users we must understand how to locate, gather, organize, interpret, synthesize, manage, present, use, and evaluate information found on electronic sources. (Small, 2011 pp 2,5,13,21) The evaluation of a website is key in weeding out what information is valid and what is not. Using the five criteria of Accuracy, Authority, Objectivity, Currency, and Coverage one can weed out information easier. Obviously if some guy named Bob is sitting in his garage writing information about tornadoes based on what he has seen in the movie "Twister", we can clearly see that he has not authority or accuracy. Sometimes it isn't that easy though. We might be able to see a bias or objectivity in a piece of information, and not all the time do websites have their "last updated" date posted. It's up to us to use our better judgement and to also realize that not every bit of information out there is ours for the taking with out giving due credit. You may not see taking information from online as plagiarism, but it is. When in doubt, always cite. Whether its from a credible source or some website you just stumbled upon with no author (I would hope you don't use that site).